Bob - Thanks for the link! I am enoying roaming their site and library.

-...-

"...they're tools, not teachers..." There is a lot of truth in that. A person can be self taught in many things, but it's usually easier and more likely to meet with success when you have someone who is already competent in ham radio communication in Morse and who is a good teacher to help you. While it IS true that there are more self help tools available now than ever before AND that many of the impediments such as the many bad methods have largely been filtered-out, such as dit/dah counting and visual charts // both quite destructive in the long run // it can still be a difficulty for someone who is not already a ham to find a ham to learn from even if they teach themselves to copy the Morse code. It's not impossible - we've all done it to some extent, but it's helpful to have someone who can give you an answer to some of our ham radio ways which may not always be in the course material.

Another factor is that while a person might learn the code quite well by themselves, learning to actually communicate with it is another learning process. Besides the technical aspects of how to zero-beat the other guy's signal, how to use filters & etc. there is also the factor that we use so many abbreviations, pro-signs and standarized exchanges like RST, QTH, & etc. that it takes a while for a new person to convert all those strange letter/number combinations into the THOUGHTS that the radio operator on the other end is actually sending their way! Even if copied onto paper prefectly, it is still a mystifying shorthand that we often use:RR OM ES FB ON UR RIG UR RST 579 LIL QSB BUT FB CPI BT OP JIRI ES QTH NR USTI HW ? W7ASA DE OK1VB KN

Now to any 'normal' human being this jumble of letters, even if copied PERFECTLY really means little or nothing until you learn to speak ham-dialect ;^) To a ham, we not only translate these sparse letters into the whole words/phrases, but also tanslate them mentally into entire block of meaning, which are often far from obvious.

FB= fine business (1920's slang) = that's goodOM = Old Man (1920's slang) = a friendly term for a fellow ham radio operator ES = and , (derived likely from French)OP JIRI = My name ir Jiri.QTH NR USTI = I live near Usti Nad Labem in the Czech Republic. HW? = So, how did you read me during this last exchange?

A teacher/Elmer would really be helpful is solving these mini-cryptograms. We ARE , after all, using a cipher system (Morse) to speak in code (Our Q-signals and prosigns). No wonder it's helpful to have a teacher.

Sure, in the early 50 there was a booklet here Seinen en Opnemen, which means giving and receiving Morse code. It handles a course counting with transmitting, method eish5, a tone-sounder and building a key, the normal abbreviations and Q code, an Xtal transmitter with a 6L6 and a 80 m transmitter with an ECO and 807 in the final. That was a very often used guide to beginning hams.

Quote

, but it's usually easier and more likely to meet with success when you have someone who is already competent in ham radio communication in Morse and who is a good teacher to help you.

You need appointments, time in transit etc, severe waste of time and hence objective.

Oooops, My fault. That one is not really international: 'lil' sounds like the word: 'little', to we Americans who tend to use a softer pronounciation for our "T"s and some other hard consonants. It varies from region to region. We even had a comic strip named " Lil' Abner " about a hill-billy who meant well, but often caused more harm than good.

Ok as I said I would do in a post here, I went up from 15/15 to 18/18 for three days. After that I came back to 15/15 and did the Wall a lot of harm. Next day the Wall fell on me, and so I took a few days off. Yesterday I did 15 again, and found a gate in the wall and walked on through-scrapped the wall a little but felt pretty good.Today the Wall must have been asleep, as I was very comfortable with 15, and went to 18. This time the Wall opened one of it's eyes and went back to sleep i.e. 18 was almost as good as 15. Well the *&^T%@ thing was asleep so climbed over it and danged, it let me be happy with 20/20. Not as good as 15 and 18 mind you, but I actually was able to write half of it.

Speaking of Ham shorthand, texting over cell phones is ridiculous. Check out this texting shorthand site. It took 25 pages to print out, and if you don't know it, your kids could be texting to their friend about you or sex, murder, anything and you would have no idea, even if you were looking over their shoulder !! All without a word from the English dictionary.http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php

Speaking of Ham shorthand, texting over cell phones is ridiculous. Check out this texting shorthand site. It took 25 pages to print out, and if you don't know it, your kids could be texting to their friend about you or sex, murder, anything and you would have no idea, even if you were looking over their shoulder !! All without a word from the English dictionary.http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php

Matt

Kids are too stupid on the average to finish a good school, but they have no problem to remember 25 pages random rubbish.

That is motivating in order to be a member of the desired gang.

When I looked at that URL my computer went tilt. Hopefully I am not infected with something rotten.14 is empty, void, so 14 is the average mental state of the user. I miss 1312 there was a law suit by justice in this country, because it was offensive for policemen. It were the sequence numbers (A=1 Z=26)of characters ACAB and that means all cobs are bastards (Mind you this country has Dutch as formal language) The judge decided because it was not well general know, it was not offensive but due to the press reports it is now very well generally known (Even I know it) so wearing a T-shirt with 1312 printed is now punishable.

Even so 88 is not "love and kisses" No it is HH and hence offensive because HH is Heil Hitler.

Oooops, My fault. That one is not really international: 'lil' sounds like the word: 'little', to we Americans who tend to use a softer pronounciation for our "T"s and some other hard consonants. It varies from region to region. We even had a comic strip named " Lil' Abner " about a hill-billy who meant well, but often caused more harm than good.

73 de RayW7ASA ..._ ._

Don't worry Ray! Bob knows exactly what lil means. He speaks perfect English. Matter of fact, he just explained to me how he learned and how he likes to copy cw. The way he likes to copy and send cw is the way only American guys does.Eu guys never have a problem copy hand sending cw.

No, it's NOT from French. It's from "American" Morse (used on the wires on this side of the pond).

In American Morse, the ampersand ( & ) is dit dididit. The space between the first dit and the other three is shorter than would be used between letters but longer than would normally be used between dits and dahs. ("American" Morse has several of these odd characters; International has none of them). In similar fashion, "VA" meaning "end of work" is derived from "30".

And of course there's the expression "take five"...which does NOT mean "five minute break" and predates Dave Brubek by many years.

Don't worry Ray! Bob knows exactly what lil means. He speaks perfect English. Matter of fact, he just explained to me how he learned and how he likes to copy cw. The way he likes to copy and send cw is the way only American guys does.Eu guys never have a problem copy hand sending cw.

73 Imi HA7AP

Hi Imi,

Thanks a lot for your msg.

As a matter of fact I valued people from HA high, because in 1956 there were a large number of political HA-refugees accepted in this pretty overpopulated Eu-country with prefix PAAA thru PIZZ.

Without known exception by me, they accepted simple work for living to start with, and grew out fast to leading workers in industry and non profit organisations. They got the opportunity and they took it.

So that may clarify my admiration for HA people. And added to your demonstrated high level of proficiency in Morse code you showed, my idea was confirmed.

However your last quoted message is experienced here as sarcastic, and I am right now afraid all the valued HA people that my country and the other countries in Western EU accepted and praised ourself lucky with those qualified hard working people, learning fast our, as such international qualified, difficult language were in fact a huge brain drain of HA.

1. I did write nowhere I enjoyed copying Morse code. Perhaps a sample of the remaining people in HA is able to comprehend that stopping something you started with a well defined goal in your mind, is a waste of time you invested already.

2. When you make a statement over EU hams able to copy any handsent code (at any speed) and any distortion, you disqualify yourself.

3. You claim to know what I exactly know.

I know nothing about you, I feel perfectly happy with that, and I hope sincerely for you that your Morse code proficiency is not your only outstanding qualification in life.Bob

It's from "American" Morse (used on the wires on this side of the pond).

In American Morse, the ampersand ( & ) is dit dididit. The space between the first dit and the other three is shorter than would be used between letters but longer than would normally be used between dits and dahs. ("American" Morse has several of these odd characters; International has none of them). In similar fashion, "VA" meaning "end of work" is derived from "30".

Interesting info Jim, tks. "de" is I suppose French origin, of the tx station and meaning "of" so the sender of the msg signing his ID.

Don't worry Ray! Bob knows exactly what lil means. He speaks perfect English. Matter of fact, he just explained to me how he learned and how he likes to copy cw. The way he likes to copy and send cw is the way only American guys does.Eu guys never have a problem copy hand sending cw.

73 Imi HA7AP

Hi Imi,

Thanks a lot for your msg.

As a matter of fact I valued people from HA high, because in 1956 there were a large number of political HA-refugees accepted in this pretty overpopulated Eu-country with prefix PAAA thru PIZZ.

Without known exception by me, they accepted simple work for living to start with, and grew out fast to leading workers in industry and non profit organisations. They got the opportunity and they took it.

So that may clarify my admiration for HA people. And added to your demonstrated high level of proficiency in Morse code you showed, my idea was confirmed.

However your last quoted message is experienced here as sarcastic, and I am right now afraid all the valued HA people that my country and the other countries in Western EU accepted and praised ourself lucky with those qualified hard working people, learning fast our, as such international qualified, difficult language were in fact a huge brain drain of HA.

1. I did write nowhere I enjoyed copying Morse code. Perhaps a sample of the remaining people in HA is able to comprehend that stopping something you started with a well defined goal in your mind, is a waste of time you invested already.

2. When you make a statement over EU hams able to copy any handsent code (at any speed) and any distortion, you disqualify yourself.

3. You claim to know what I exactly know.

I know nothing about you, I feel perfectly happy with that, and I hope sincerely for you that your Morse code proficiency is not your only outstanding qualification in life.Bob

About the wall.. Back in the mid 70' s I was stuck around 12, a fellow ham I worked with after some time listening to me bitch about it said he would be over that night, BTW he taught code in the army..

He opened a book and give me the following directions, I am going to send at 20 wpm for 5 minutes copy what you can.. I will not stop.

when he looked at my mess he created a chart.. he looked at each time I was copying and wrote down the first character I missed. His conclusion was that I started missing anytime I hit any one of 6 characters.

He then sent 5 letter code groups (20 wpm) consisting of only those characters for the rest of the evening while we drank coffee, perhaps a beer or two. BTW, I did not write anything down, I spoke the character to him as it was sent, he had instant feedback on each character and knew which characters I was still having problems with.

Problem was resolved.. next day solid copy at 20 wpm.

Since that time I have resolved the code problems for others using the same technique.

His theory was simple

if you goal is to learn code at 20 wpm, always listen to each character at 20 wpm. Anyone can slow down, the problem is to instantly recognize each character at that speed.

If you don't instantly recognize a character, you will attempt to translate, then miss following characters because you ran out of brain time, so make sure you instantly recognize all characters including punctuation.

If you have time to translate in your head you will. So don't slow down between characters.. just miss the character and go on.. Contrary to Farnsworth thinking..

listen to code without writing, or typing.

After years to considering his theories, I have come to the following conclusions:

It takes much longer to learn code in speed steps then to just learn it at a speed you can use.

head fluster from not instantaneous knowing a character is most likely 99% of most peoples problem.

I think the same head fluster is found when earning any language..

You only possess conversational language when you instantly know each element without doing any translation in your head

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